In June 1861, Emperor Norton issued a Proclamation against privateering — which basically was state-sanctioned piracy.
Recently, we discovered — or, more accurately, recovered — an image of the Emperor’s handwritten manuscript of the Proclamation that was published in a tiny magazine of California history in 1956. The print copy of the relevant issue of the magazine is at the San Francisco Public Library and was scanned and added to the Internet Archive in 2014.
We’ve not yet been able to determine whether the Proclamation was published. What seems clear, though: The existence of the Proclamation flew under the radar between 1861 and 1956; the publication of the manuscript in 1956 made little or no impression; and the Proclamation has continued to fly under the radar for the nearly 70 years since.
We’re delighted to be able to bring it back to the surface now.
One reason why this Proclamation is of interest: It offers a possible clue for explaining the still-undocumented claim that Emperor Norton called for a “League of Nations.”
Also included in this article: Details about the pioneer San Francisco bookseller Jefferson Martenet (1826–1906), whose preservation of the Norton manuscript in a personal scrapbook made it possible for us to find the manuscript in 2022.
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There’s a familiar and popular illustration of Emperor Norton that most Nortonians know because it appeared on a Discordian flyer created by Greg Hill a.k.a. Malaclypse the Younger.
Hill wasn’t just any Discordian. He was one of the two co-founders of Discordianism, the mystical “anti-religion” that reveres Emperor Norton as a saint. It is Hill qua Malaclypse who is credited with the oft-quoted aphorism: “Everybody understands Mickey Mouse. Few understand Hermann Hesse. Hardly anybody understands Einstein. And nobody understands Emperor Norton."
But, it wasn’t Hill who drew the Emp that is featured on his flyer. He cribbed the illustration from one of the most influential corporate advertising firms in the United States. The illustration was work the firm had just done for an Old West banking client that has been a household name for generations.
The ad firm already had a connection of sorts to the Emperor. Soon — 50 years ago this past July — the firm would create what now is regarded as one of the most legendary ads in the history of the discipline.
The obscure origins of the firm’s portrait of the Emperor have remained hidden for decades.
Read on to see what’s under the rock. It’s a fascinating story.
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A May 1956 episode of the television series Telephone Time is one of the four films currently included in The Emperor’s Bridge Campaign’s digital ARchive of Emperor Norton in Art, Music & Film (ARENA).
The series was created, produced and hosted by John Nesbitt. And the episode is titled “Emperor Norton’s Bridge,” although the Bay Bridge — the Emperor’s bridge — appears nowhere in the story.
As it happens, though, Nesbitt — starting years before the airing of the episode — was a lifelong advocate for naming the Bay Bridge after Emperor Norton.
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